Getting Through
by squelchything
Summary: Ten year old Luke gets into a fight in school. What does it take to get through to a Skywalker?


It was high summer on Tatooine. The heat was enough to make a grown man faint, and the glare of the sand flats could blind a person within the hour. The harvest, snatched with great labour from the unforgiving climate, was all in, and the farm kids were back in school. Later, when the weather broke, there would be sandstorms.  
  
The pupils at Anchorhead Imperial Centre for Elementary Education, during their lunch break, automatically moved into the shadow of the power station, at the far end of the schoolyard. The heat made the children snappish, and tempers were running high.  
  
"That's not true! Take it back now!" Luke Skywalker yelled. He was on edge, his small, slender frame tensed, his hands closing into fists.  
  
Fixer, looming between Luke and the suns like a dust cloud, laughed.  
  
"Gonna make me, Wormie? Maybe you didn't hear it right the first time: Your-"  
  
Luke hit him.  
  
He had to swing his fist up a long way, because Fixer was much taller. The older boy gave a grunt of pain and staggered.  
  
Biggs wailed, "Luke, don't!" and grabbed at him from behind-too late.  
Luke flung himself at Fixer, his arms flailing. Wild, random blows connected with Fixer's chest and jaw.  
  
Fixer knocked Luke's arm up. He made a grab at the windmilling fists. In the opening he had made, he jabbed in, hitting Luke's chin.  
Luke's teeth clacked together. He saw stars. Fixer grabbed him by the shoulders and started shaking. Luke's head jerked back and forth so hard he couldn't see. He hit out again, landing a blow to Fixer's eye by pure chance.  
  
Fixer let go of Luke's shoulders. He hit him again, a backhanded slap across the face. Luke went sprawling. Fixer stooped over him, pummelling and kicking. His head hit sand.  
  
Biggs yelled something. Luke couldn't hear any more. Fixer had a knee on his chest, his desert boot digging into Luke's leg. He was hitting Luke so that his head jarred against the hot sand over and over and it _hurt_-  
  
It stopped. Luke opened his eyes. The sky far above was very bright, very blue. It hurt to look at, so he closed his eyes again.  
From somewhere above came the angry voice of his teacher.  
  
"Just _what_ do you two think you're doing?!"  
  
Kali Onnasal had been bored. The glowing enthusiasm of her teacher training college had made no mention of being stuck in this hot, sandy wilderness. The middle school class she taught ran from ten to thirteen; even so there were only seven pupils in it. She was musing on the futility of ambition and the inequality of assigned positions, when she heard a yell out in the yard, the sort of yell that meant 'trouble'. The heat struck her like a blow as she hurried out into the cloudless early afternoon.  
  
In the angle between the perimeter fence and the power station, in the shadow of its bulk, a group of children clustered. They were circling warily, feet scuffling the sand. One of them-Deak, she thought-saw her, and yelled. The kids scattered along the fence, the instinct for self-preservation taking over, showing her two of her middle standard boys in the middle of a fistfight.  
  
Kali shouted, but the combatants ignored her. It was the oldest boy, the thirteen-year-old called Fixer, and the little blond one-Luke Lars was his name in the official school records, but the others called him 'Wormie' and sometimes 'Skywalker'.  
  
Kali ran forward. Luke was getting the worst of it-he was on his back, with Fixer on top of him, punching away.  
  
"Fixer! Stop that at once!"  
  
Fixer gave a last blow as she came level with the boys. She seized his shoulder and hauled him off Luke. He glared up at her, all split lip and eyes narrowed against the sun.  
  
"Just _what_ do you two think you're doing?!" she spat.  
  
Luke was still on the ground, curled in a tight little ball, arms shielding his head. Biggs Darklighter ducked beneath Kali's arm to kneel beside Luke.  
  
"Luke, are you okay? C'mon, hotshot-you're okay-"  
  
Luke moaned and uncurled, moving one limb at a time as if he wasn't sure everything still worked.  
  
Kali darted a stern glare at each of the boys.  
  
"You two are in _big_ trouble."  
  
Luke sat up, taking little whimpering breaths. A thread of blood trickled down his top lip. Biggs, radiating indignation and silent sympathy, grasped the smaller boys elbows and heaved him to his feet.  
  
"_He_ started it," Fixer announced. Kali thought this unlikely-Fixer's staple amusement was tormenting the smaller boys-especially Luke, who was easily baited-and he used his fists readily.  
  
"Come, I want the truth now," she scolded.  
  
"Wormie started it," Fixer and Windy said together. The group had polarised into Fixer- and Luke- supporting camps-Fixer, Tank and Windy on one side, Luke, Biggs and Biggs' small sister Emmi on the other, with Deak and Camie hovering in the neutral zone between.  
  
"It's true," Luke said in a very small voice. "I hit him first."  
  
Biggs threw his friend an exasperated glance, and piped up in Luke's defence, "But Fixer was saying-stuff, about Luke's family-"  
  
"Inside, now," Kali ordered. She could deal with this without the Tatooine suns trying to bake her alive. "March."  
  
"But Teacher Onnasal-" Biggs protested as he trailed in the wake of Kali and her two prisoners. Biggs was the only boy in the class who could get away with challenging both his teacher and Fixer. The Darklighters were well off, and Biggs always had the most up-to-date toys in the class. His status and outgoing, friendly nature were enough to counter Fixer's physical supremacy, and he knew it. He objected all the way to the porch.  
  
The change from broiling heat to the blessed coolness of the interior was abrupt.  
  
"Fixer was saying-" Biggs protested doggedly.  
  
"Biggs Darklighter, when I want your opinion I will ask for it. Now scram-and the rest of you. Go and play."  
  
She herded her charges ahead of her into the second standard classroom, where they stood side by side, shooting covert glares at each other. Fixer had an angry red mark forming on his cheekbone, and Luke was wiping his bloody nose on his sleeve.  
  
"Well?" Kali said.  
  
"Wormie-Luke-hit me for no reason."  
  
"Luke? Why did you hit Fixer?"  
  
Luke's mouth set in a stubborn line. "Like he said. No reason."  
  
"Don't be silly-of course there was a reason."  
  
Silence. Kali sighed.  
  
"Well, you can both stay behind after class to help out as punishment. Now apologise to each other and you can go out and play."  
  
Fixer spat out what she guessed to be a native curse-word; Luke looked dismayed.  
  
"'M sorry I hit you, Fixer," he mumbled.  
  
"Sorry, Wormie," Fixer responded unconvincingly, already halfway to the door. Luke hovered in front of Kali, his expression agitated.  
  
"Teacher, please don't keep me in-I'll miss my lift and Uncle Owen will be angry and-"  
  
Kali held up a hand.  
"Suppose you tell me why you hit Fixer?"  
  
Luke kept talking, the words pouring out of him. "He-said-my-father-didn't-want-me-or-he-wouldn't-have-left-me-"  
"Your father?"  
  
"My father's _dead_," Luke said, rubbing a hand across his nose again. Kali gave a helpless sigh. This situation was not one she had been prepared to deal with.  
  
Luke's shoulders were quivering, and blood smeared one cheek. Kali wanted to hug him, but was sure _that_ response was nowhere in the Imperial teaching handbook. Instead, she dropped to one knee to bring herself to Luke's eye level-he was a small child for his ten years-and put a hand on one thin shoulder.  
  
"I'll see what I can do, Luke. Go and get cleaned up now, and try to stay out of trouble."  
  
Biggs Darklighter was waiting in the porch. He slung an arm around Luke's slumped shoulders and gave the smaller boy a little shake.  
  
"Idiot," he said without rancour. "What'dya get, kept in?"  
  
Luke nodded, his arm going up to hug Biggs back.  
  
"My father _did_ want me-he would be here if he hadn't died-"  
  
"'Course he would. You shouldn't have hit Fix, though-'s just looking for trouble-"  
  
"Some day, Biggs, we're gonna get out of here-away from Fixer an' stupid school an' stupid vaporators-"  
  
"Yeah, and we'll have our own starship and fly round the galaxy and do wizard stuff. Just us, no grown-ups..."  
  
The two small boys, arms round each other's shoulders, eyes full of shooting stars, walked out into the sunlight.  
  
Kali smiled. Children's dreams...it seemed next door to impossible that Luke, from one of the poorer farm families, would ever make it off-planet. The gruff, taciturn man she'd assumed was his father-'Uncle Owen', he'd said-had not looked the man to brook dreamers, or little boys who were kept late for fighting. And the kind-faced wife-the disappointed look she had given Luke the last time he got in trouble was the twin of Kali's mother's in similar situations.  
  
One wasn't supposed to have favourites. Small, unpopular children were supposed to find their own feet without special help from their teacher. But then, Anchorhead wasn't a typical elementary school, and Luke wasn't a typical Imperial child.  
  
Kali resolutely squelched her stirrings of conscience as the two malefactors came before her later that afternoon.  
  
"Fixer," she said, "you go to help Teacher Sunchaser in the Standard Three classroom. Luke, stay here with me. I want you to clean up-go and get the floor brush."  
  
She closed the door after Fixer and shut down the solar blinds. Luke was fetching the brush from the corner cupboard. In the rising light of the sensor lamps, he looked very small and dispirited. Kali moved from desk to desk, turning off consoles.  
  
"I thought I had to do that?"  
  
"I said 'help' not 'do it all'. We don't want you to miss your lift, do we?"  
  
Luke's incredulous grin as he lifted a joyous face was enough to make it worthwhile.  
  
"I'll take the litter out myself," Kali said a few minutes later. "Now run."  
  
"Not in the corridor!" she called after his disappearing form. Some stragglers still lingered in the porch, and Kali could hear a speeder idling outside. Sixteen-year-old Sim Darklighter, who had left school before the last harvest, sat at the controls. His younger siblings were hanging off each wing, feet trailing the ground, making the little craft rock on its repulsorlifts.  
  
"One more minute, Sim..." Biggs said, while eight-year-old Emmi, blond pigtails brushing her brother's arm, chanted, "Please wait, please wait-he's here!"  
  
"'Bout time, kiddo," Sim grunted at Luke. Kali stopped by the speeder.  
  
"Listen, Luke, don't hit Fixer next time, ok? Try not to get mad-even if he says things that make you want to."  
  
Luke nodded. "Okay, Teacher."  
  
"You in trouble _again_, hotshot?" Sim groaned, engaging the engine. Kali stepped backwards as the speeder drove off. She hoped her small lesson had gone home better with kindness, rather than washed down with what Luke would certainly consider injustice. After all, standard methods didn't take into account little fatherless boys, whose blue eyes were full of hurt and reproach.  
  
Now, if she could only think of a way to get through to Fixer... 


End file.
